Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Fei Cao

Shaoyu Zhou

Michael Elizarov

Siddhartha Roy

Sijian Zhang

Lei Jin

James Zhang

Ehr-Chun Yeh

Zhuoqing Wu, Jr

Zhuoqing Wu

Systems, methods, and computer storage media having computer-executable instructions embodied thereon that maintain a targetable user inventory for digital advertising. In embodiments, a request is made for user data associated with a user identification. If the user data or user identification is not available, a list of alternative user identifications is ranked according to various criteria based on identification signals. A match is selected from the list of alternative user identifications and user data associated with the alternative user identification is communicated in response to the request.

Maintaining targetable user inventory for digital advertising

Systems and methods for mapping identifiers are provided. Activity logs illustrate activities and/or events associated with a plurality of identifiers. The identifiers may be registered identifiers, unregistered identifiers, or a combination thereof. When at least two identifiers share a linking attribute, the at least two identifiers may be mapped to one another, along with information associated therewith (if any) such as a user profile. Each subsequent line of an activity line may also be mapped to the identifiers of the initial single line when a linking attribute or an overlapping identifier is present. A number of identifiers associated with each other may be increased by mapping identifiers and, thus, a targeted audience for a customized advertisement may, in turn, be increased.

Mapping identifiers

Methods and systems for maintaining user privacy preferences based on one or more user identifications across a plurality of applications are provided. Two or more user identifications are received with associated user privacy preferences. The received user identification is compared against other user identifications to determine if the user identifications relate to the same user. It may be determined that two user identifications are related if they have at least one browser property in common. A consolidated data stream of the user privacy preferences for the related user identifications is created. The consolidated data stream is communicated to one or more applications and propagated to maintain the user privacy preferences across the applications relating to the user identification.

Propagating user privacy preferences across multiple applications

Large sets of unorganized data may provide little value in identifying useful observations from such data. For example, an online merchant may maintain a database of millions of user IDs (e.g., a cookie ID, a login ID, a device ID, a network ID, etc.) along with content viewed and/or actions taken with the user IDs, where minimal associations are known between user IDs. It may be advantageous to link together user IDs of respective users to capture a comprehensive view of respective users' activities. Accordingly, one or more systems and/or techniques for identifying a cluster of nodes based upon transforming a set of node pairings (e.g., pairings of related nodes) one or more times are disclosed herein. Iterative transformations may be performed until respective nodes are paired with merely their smallest neighboring node and are paired with no other node. In this way, node clusters may be identifiable.

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Issaquah, WA, United States of America

Fei Cao